


Prepare for the Best

by quiet__tiger



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 08:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10850148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet__tiger/pseuds/quiet__tiger
Summary: Batman tries to prepare for Joker's plans for April Fool's Day.





	Prepare for the Best

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Prank."
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal 29th-Mar-2012.

“And that’s just my warm up, Batsy! Wait until the big day! We’ll have so much fun!”

Batman stared grimly at the large monitor, then rewound the video and watched it again. So much carnage in one television spot. One minute of Joker on the screen advertising his “services,” and fourteen people dead.

There was no way to prepare or plan or try to stop him. Bruce Wayne had been home watching the news and then there Joker was on his television, ghoulish face washed out even further with the stage lights as he grinned and laughed and generally enjoyed the hell out of himself as he electrocuted people to death with his hand buzzer.

After a few people he didn’t even shake their hand, he just pressed it against their forehead.

Into that one woman’s _eye_ …

There was no doubt that Joker would come through on his promise. There was also no doubt that the “big day” meant April Fool’s Day. It was next week, and Joker always made sure to get in a prank or two. Some years the prank was relatively harmless; one year Joker bleached a giant representation of his face into the grass in the park, and another year he non-lethally Smilexed all of the animals in the Gotham City Zoo.

But three years ago thirty people died when Joker had used his toxin on a bus driver who’d laughed himself into a fit on the highway while driving seventy miles an hour. Later Batman had learned it had been luck that Joker had poisoned the cocktail of the bus driver and not the commercial airplane pilot with whom he’d been out for a drink.

Not “luck.” That wasn’t the right word.

Though it may prove useless, Batman started drafting his own television spots, radio ads, and newspaper articles to give to the police. Surely one way or another the citizens of Gotham would be reminded not to consume anything that wasn’t already in their pantry or cabinet or bathroom or _anything_ long before April 1st,. And for heaven’s sake to stay away from crowded public spaces.

Maybe this year Batman and the police would find Joker and stop him before his next atrocity.

No. He _would_. He’d finish this work, then go patrol like mad until he found the crazy white-skinned son of a bitch.

No more death and horror in his city. Especially not with a warning that it would happen.

The heinous “pranks” would end this year.

~*~

April 1st arrived in Gotham City on a mild, partially cloudy day. The citizens, at least the ones who heeded the warnings, were careful about where they went and what products they consumed. The ones who either didn’t care or didn’t know went about their business as usual.

Batman patrolled as inconspicuously as he could, so that he could rush to the nearest sign of Joker-related trouble. It would be a long day, but just maybe he would finally get that monster locked up for good.

~*~

Meanwhile, over in Metropolis, the Joker was laughing his head off as three police departments in different corners of the city filled with Smilex. Where would Superman go first? He may be faster than a speeding bullet, but he couldn’t air out all three buildings at the same time. And by the time Batman got there to bail out the Boy Scout, it may be too late! Joker hadn’t released a _necessarily_ lethal dose of Smilex, but the people of Metropolis had never had cause to build up an immunity to it either.

How many would be laughing themselves to death by the end of day?

He howled again just thinking about it. “I got you good this year, Batsy! They’ll never know what hit them until it’s too late! I can’t wait till you get here to enjoy it with me!”


End file.
